Ursula Bethell Residency in Creative Writing

Ursula spent many of her days travelling between the two locations before settling down in Rise Cottage on the Cashmere Hills. Bethell's early works were published under the pseudonym Evelyn Hayes. The first of Bethell's collections, From a Garden in the Antipodes , is her best-known work, but Time and Place (Caxton, 1936) was her most valued: a compilation of poetry in memory of Bethell's close friend Effie Pollen. Ursula Bethell, recognised as one of the pioneers of modern New Zealand poetry, passed away in Christchurch on the 15th January 1945 at age 71.

History of the Residency

The Ursula Bethell Residency in Creative Writing, jointly funded by the University of Canterbury Faculty of Arts and Creative New Zealand, was established by the University of Canterbury in 1979 to provide support for New Zealand writers and foster New Zealand writing. The Residency allows authors of proven merit in all areas of literary and creative activity an opportunity to work on an approved project within an academic environment. Since its inception the University has been home to 40 fiction-writers, poets and dramatists, a number of whom have made a valuable contribution to the development of young writers studying at the University. We have also had the opportunity to celebrate the successes of our Residents throughout the years, one of the most memorable being Keri Hulme's Booker Prize in 1985.

Current Writers in Residence

Pip Adam is a Pākehā, Tauiwi fiction writer. Pip's great grandparents came to Waihōpai and her family lived there until her father and mother moved away in the late 1960s. Pip was born in Ōtautahi and lived here for the first three years of her life and for a seven-year period in her late twenties. Since 2001 Pip has lived in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. 

Pip is the author of Audition (2023), which was shortlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction; Nothing to See (2020), also shortlisted for the Acorn Foundation Prize for Fiction; The New Animals (2017), which won the Acorn Foundation Prize for Fiction; I'm Working on a Building (2013); and the short story collection Everything We Hoped For (2010), which won the NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction in 2011. Audition was published in Australia by Giramondo and in the UK by Peninsula Press. Pip makes the Better off Read podcast (link: https://better-read.com/).

While in residency at the university, Pip will be working on her sixth novel that explores the intersection of jokes and abuse. The book looks at the ways humour is weaponised to allow sexual, physical, mental and emotional harm. It is interested in the ways harm is enabled, reinforced and bragged about in plain sight in the guise of jokes. Taking its energy from every time someone has been told they ‘can’t take a joke’.

Postal address for the Ursula Bethell Writers in residence:

English Programme
School of Humanities
University of Canterbury
Private Bag 4800
Christchurch, New Zealand